CODE: Reboot Season One
by Kavik and Aki
Summary: The curtain is drawn. But I give you: Part Two. XANA has been cleansed of infected coding by Jeremie's program. He knows when the supercomputer is off, those still infected become more powerful. What now? U/O OC?OC J/A
1. CODE: Reboot

Kaosu: WHOO! - I saw it. P: NOW to update the chapter accordingly. P:

Disclaimer: I own CODE: Lyoko! SEE?! LOOKIE! –holds up a sheet of paper that says "INSANITY LICENSE"- Oh, no... This is just that paper that says I'm allowed by law to freely wander the streets under the status of "crazy person". -shrug-

Warning: Knowing me, it may eventually contain yaoi. Oh, and there is some scattered swearing.

Kaosu: -reads over the warning- -crosses out "may eventually"- -writes in "most likely will"-

Special thanks: Alteris and their story Damonic Rapture. (I thank you for the ideas of what I'm gonna have happen to XANA and the existence of other Project Carthage AIs, although I won't use the exact characters you did, I shall... make my own. o. o o .o)

Kaosu: So, this story takes place after the final episode, Echoes. Erm... I don't mean to sound annoying, but I care what you think of my story. (Oh, and those reading but don't have a FanFiction account, you can review my stories, too! I do that on purpose! PLEASE! Your thoughts matter, too!) Anyway, the CODE: Reboot stories are like a follow-up story. So, welcome to CODE: Reboot, season 1! Enjoy!

-C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T-:- -E-P-I-S-O-D-E- -1-:- -C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -P-A-R-T- -1-

-L-Y-O-K-O-

Slowly, the sectors began to drain of their skin mappings, leaving the solid, criss-crossing wire-frames. Those were close behind the skin mappings, not letting them be any farther than 14-17 horizontal lines ahead. Towers lost their white, "idle" glow and followed suit. The process was at the same place in each sector, if each were stacked so the centers lined up, and headed northward, right for Sector 5. When they arrived, the data streams died out much like when they were being opened, and the Tower-like, data covered, moderately-lit interior of its shell began to dim out as the panels rapidly fell off the wall and disappeared into the abyss below. Soon it was only one screen, sitting along the now empty and dim shell of Sector 5, before it joined the others, lingering for no more than a mere moment longer. The only light left was what little came through the tunnels. The Celestial Dome began to do what the other four sector themselves has earlier done. The shutdown spread inward. The core had by then flickered out to nothing. Everything vanished, except the digital sea, the sky, and the empty shell that once was Sector 5. Said blue sphere began to groan and creak as it fell into the sea, and promptly exploded. The big shell which encased Lyoko vanished the same way as Replikas did when THEIR supercomputers were destroyed, or in this case, shut down, and Lyoko's once occupied space now was empty. The rest of the supercomputer network within the Digital Sea began to flicker.

A flickering purple sphere of light, known as the only remnant of Franz Hopper, had but one thought before the Digital Sea died out. "I'm proud of you, Aelita. You've done well." Apparently, the thought had leaked out of the network, and somehow slipped its way into a certain pink haired girl's cell-phone as a text message. (Hey, I can't let the poor girl never hear from her father ever again! That's like watching your parents die right before your eyes! AND NEVER KNOWING WHO THEY WERE until YEARS after the fact, and STILL not knowing them very well! It'd SUCK!)

The Replikas began to disappear as Lyoko had, and the shells exploded soon after. The Digital Sea kept flickering between its blue, XANA-free state, and the red, XANA-attack state, and eventually, after everything was gone, went pitch-black. Well... ALMOST everything.

There was one thing Jeremie's multi-agent program did NOT detect: one final Replika.

-T-H-E- -F-I-N-A-L- -R-E-P-L-I-K-A-:- -M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N- -S-E-C-T-O-R-,- -N-E-A-R- -W-A-Y- -T-O-W-E-R-

XANA himself had a 'human" appearance. He appeared as a teenager with dark-red down-and-back hair in an outfit much like Aelita's, if Aelita wasn't a girl, didn't have the bracelet enabling flight, the earring OR the skirt, and used (in order) black, red, a gray perfectly between black and white, a little blue, a dark orange, nearly-black-dark-red, and a red Eye of XANA instead of (again, in order) pink, hot pink, silver-blue-gray, dark-pink, white, nearly-black-dark-pink, and the pink dot on the chest. His weapon was a sword very similar to the one he equipped William with when he XANAfied him, except less wide, and the wood-like part was actually more like the inside of a Mega-Tank: almost sickeningly organic-looking. ALMOST. And for his power... or powers... he was like Aelita in that he could deactivate, or also activate, Towers, and create land where there isn't, but also like Odd in that he was very quick to react... when paying attention. He could build Towers in the same way that the landscape could be altered. He could see countdowns and important status information from the Replika in small, but readable, translucent (enough to see, but still see through,) white print that was projected into the image his brain received from his eyes. Last, he could bend the reality of Lyoko so it was hidden, like the hidden Towers he used a few times before, different in the eyes of different people, so that no one can agree, or even bend it so the things you see are mere hallucinations, confusing even the map of Lyoko!

It was the only Replika XANA ever made with all the sectors and Towers in it. But this Lyoko was much like the original Sector 5: It changed constantly, and somewhere in each Sector, be it in a Way Tower or Celestial Dome, there was an access panel, providing access to all the data in the Sector, just like in the original Sector 5.

Of course, that wouldn't be important if he didn't hurry. "Damn it, my programming just HAD to get bugged THAT badly... It took YEARS to repair the damage, and as if THAT wasn't bad enough, now I can't even get some help without this obnoxious shutdown?!" He ran for the last Tower in the Mountains, the Way Tower.

He'd been running around the digital world ever since the supercomputer had started the shutdown reaction. He was just sitting in a random Forest Sector Tower, minding his own business, modifying his debugging program's automatic scan and repair setting so he wouldn't get a bug like the LAST one, when all of a sudden, in the bottom-right corner of his vision, a small, labeled count-down appeared. And what did that countdown happen to say? Why, it said "Total Shutdown will Execute in: 0:25:41.97", and then it started to decrease. XANA knew this day would come, and he had been certain it would happen before he could complete his latest project. (No, I will not risk my life and/or mind and invade the diary, brain, or at least once daily self-to-reflection/self (in case there is no mirror around when they occur) conversations of a once bugged-up-to-the-point-of-trying-to-rule-Earth AI just to find out what said project is.)

He ran in, sending red ripples over the spot where he entered, and dashed to the center, rising up, floating, doing a back-flip in the air, landing on the top, and walking up to the center. A panel appeared, and he placed his hand on it. It displayed "XANA" in its usual colored text, then read "CODE:" and just stopped. With more than one Tower-linked ability, XANA could enter whatever code he pleased, as long as he knew the code and its function. Otherwise, it could cause issues he didn't need to be dealing with. He placed his index finger on the panel, holding it there, and then tapped twice. The panel then read "VERIFY", and he repeated the procedure. This time, it did just what it normally did for Aelita, but with a different code: "CODE:" Pause... "REBOOT"

Then all the data lining the walls of the Tower froze, and so did the Tower itself. In order to prevent the same from happening to him, XANA leaped right out, ignoring fact that he'd be going through a LOT less trouble by lowering to the bottom platform, and called the last Manta still under his control to him. The Manta had been waiting at the base of the Tower, because Monsters have never been able to enter them. The comically half-witted Kankrelats even proved it themselves on one of the first times XANA turned a Tower and the near-by landscape invisible, by crashing right into the Tower, and continuing to run while on its side, causing it to spin in a stupidly amusing way around the top of its overly-large head.

The Manta rose up so that its creator and master could land on its back, and then choose where to go next, although in a less intelligent slew of 1's and 0's, wondered why this world existed, and why its... some word (the word being "beautiful") it didn't know how it used, or knew, or even what it meant... land and sky kept threatening to disappear.

The Mountain Sector froze just as XANA left the boundaries of it. (Similar to the reset program, but without the surge that unfroze everything.) Last, but certainly not least, Sector 5. He couldn't just skip to the Dome; otherwise the Sector 5 programming would try to destroy him. He mentally cursed himself for not further expanding the power and hard drive of the supercomputer components he manufactured in the Factory. To do this, he used a Tower he activated at just the right moment so it wouldn't be stopped, and the cameras of the factory (on the occasions Jeremie had brought his laptop with him for whatever it was needed for; virtual clone of Aelita, for example, in the episode "Franz Hopper".) to build the plastic case pieces and other unique components for a laptop. The finished and properly functioning cross between a supercomputer and a laptop was currently sitting in the assembly room, where XANA had once built an army of robots to destroy Team Lyoko's human members from that time. "If I had had enough time to add just a couple hundred more Gigabytes, MAYBE I wouldn't be having this much difficulty right now." The Arena was already in wireframe state, but if nothing else, at least he disabled the Key when Team Lyoko had started the shutdown procedure.

Staying on the Manta, he simply flew past everything. The shutdown effect was just at the Manta's tail. His last monster would NOT be lost to a god damn shut-down! The Manta was thinking the same general thing, except less intelligently, but was smart enough to speed up. Soon the shutdown process was out of sight, and XANA reached the last panel, the very one that had provided Team Lyoko a lot of information on thousands of occasions. "I'm glad I didn't add a Tower here..." was all he said as he went through the CODE: REBOOT process.

Sector 5 re-built what had vanished, and froze as well. Then the WHOLE REPLIKA went into freeze mode. The countdown had stopped at 0:00:00.09, and then vanished. 'DAMN that was lucky...' XANA thought, being frozen as well. Then, a line of text appeared in his sight, reading "Total Shutdown Interrupted. Canceled Total Shutdown." Then another showed up saying "CODE: Reboot has been initiated. Collecting remaining fragments, restoring the missing data, saving remaining objects/creatures, and creating a power surge to reactivate the things that were saved and restored without error." A new countdown appeared, and it was set for ten seconds exactly. At 0:00:07.58, it jumped forward to 0:00:05.02, and the rest went as normal. When it finished, the Replika's core sent out another surge, and that gathered into the four Way Towers, the core keeping some held back. Then the Way Towers created surges that collected in all ten Towers (Way Towers included) in each sector. And finally, the core and the Towers all charged up more power to add to the amount they already had.

Then, the core let out a huge six-way surge, which on the way to the data tunnels ant top and bottom walls, started to activate Sector 5. As the four surges that were let out towards the other four sectors crossed over Towers, all six surges grew. And as they passed over Way Towers, all six grew MORE. They became so large that once they got out to the edge of the shell of the Replika, there was so much power and force behind them that they swept through the whole entire Digital Sea, re-awakening it and anything that had been saved. That Replika, the re-built original Lyoko, the Digital Sea, and Franz Hopper were the only known things to be restored. The re-constructed original re-assembled itself, and sent its power surge back to the factory supercomputer.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -T-H-E- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-:- -M-A-I-N- -F-L-O-O-R-

The supercomputer had been shut down. The "ex-"Lyoko warriors didn't seem to mind one bit.

"Well, looks like that's the end of XANA," Odd said with his usual cheerful voice, "Now that that's done, let's go get some lunch!" The rest of the group laughed at their friend's insatiable appetite.

"Odd," Ulrich reminded, "We just had breakfast."

"..." Odd was silent, then replied, "Yeah... What's your point?" More laughter followed. Aelita's phone suddenly rang, and when she checked it, she saw a text message, that came from... Franz Hopper?

She quickly opened it, and read it. Tears formed as she remembered all too soon the reason she wanted to keep the supercomputer on. But smiling as she began to understand her father's words, the tears turned to those of happiness. The others noticed, and she explained what had just happened. There was no more talk about the Lyoko memories for a moment.

No one noticed the supercomputer whirring back to life as they all left the factory, and went back to the school.

-R-E-P-L-I-K-A-:- -F-O-R-E-S-T- -S-E-C-T-O-R-

"I should have expected as much," sighed the debugged AI. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to gather help the hard way." XANA walked up to the edge of the sector, and stepped onto the back of his only remaining Manta. The Manta knew where it was supposed to take XANA, and went right to Sector 5.

-R-E-P-L-I-K-A-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5-

The Manta had arrived in the Arena, and stopped at a three-layered button shaped like the Eye of XANA with a slit in the center of the inner-most object, the circle. You see, XANA built this Replika within five hours of being fully debugged. His creativity then got the better of him, and he decided to make it so the key was slightly more challenging, and a bit more complex, and if he hadn't liked the idea so much, he probably could have squeezed in the program or script or whatever he would have used, that would let him skip right to the Celestial Dome in an extremely important situation. The way it worked is this: the slit was for the placement of the Lyoko Sword, the sword he used in Lyoko, which actually had references to all five sectors of Lyoko, and various other aspects of the virtual world, not just the Mega-Tank. The three layers of the key needed to be rotated, and then pressed in. Eventually, the turning would warp the Eye of XANA into another shape from Lyoko, such as the access panel in the Celestial Dome and the Towers. Once the segment that was being turned had warped, you would place pressure on the sword, which slid that layer in. you would continue to warp the pieces until it became a new shape entirely. Then you would remove the sword, and it became the normal Key, except it glowed green. Then you smack the key, as always, and it presses in.

XANA completed the process, and instead of going to the Celestial Dome, he took a different path. This one wound out to the left, and was one XANA had been Reality Warping so it couldn't be seen on the map or in Lyoko, by anyone except him, that is. He ran to a room with literally a hundred corridors branching out, all leading to the place he wanted to go, but only one being crossable. The others had things like falling ceilings, trapdoors to the void, and long sections of walls that shot out spikes at a rapid speed, filling the section of hallway. XANA had his Digital Display sight, so he pulled up a mini-map, and bolted down corridor #45. He arrived, completely intact, in a room full of shelves made of the same blue, block-like pieces as the sector. And upon those shelves were files, programs, and various other data and computer objects. It even had the profile cards, Tower ID files, and all the other things that were ever on Lyoko. It also had in it two side-by-side, tall, rapidly spinning columns, with thousands of small spikes. It was like a digital shredder, but it could delete more than one thing at once, and it didn't leave scraps.

XANA went to the section his digital display had labeled 'Programs'. He found the button on the shelf shaped like 'ABC', and pressed it. Everything in the section began rearranging itself, until the labels in his display finally stopped going crazy, and went back to understandable text. He began to rise up with the block of floor just beneath him. XANA stopped when the shelf labeled 'C-CO' was in reach, and found the program he was looking for. He pulled a small screen like the ones on the wall of the Celestial Dome. "Well, if it isn't the Code: Earth Program." The block returned to the ground. "It's time to see if you still work."

-R-E-P-L-I-K-A-:- -F-O-R-E-S-T- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -W-A-Y-T-O-W-E-R-

XANA hadn't the heart to destroy his only remaining ally, so instead, he created an AI out of him as well, improving his intelligence from 5 to 55, and anything else he could think of changing. Soon, he had a teenage male with a Lyoko outfit identical to his, with dark blue hair down to the top of his neck, Psychic abilities, and the ability of copying anyone's weapon. He decided the AI's name would be Psyc, just to emphasize the point.

When he launched the recreate program, the Manta lost its skin map, and the wireframe restructured itself to the point where it was a different creature entirely; a human being. The skin mapping for Psyc began to fill itself in.

_Huh? What's…? I'm not a Monster anymore! I'm… I'm a human being… and I've got functional, coherent thought!_ the ex-Manta thought. "Does this mean I'm not staying in Lyoko?" he asked XANA.

"Yes. If the other Project Carthage AIs manage to get into this Replika, you would be destroyed by those who once were possible 'friends' of yours. And I won't lose my last ally left to reprogrammed creatures that once belonged to me."

The two entered the Way Tower. XANA ran the CODE: Earth program. Within moments, the program had finished, and it would be smooth sailing from then on.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C- -A-C-A-D-E-M-Y-:- -B-O-Y-S-'- -D-O-R-M-S-(Late The Next Day)

"… Here at Kadic, you both will live among the majority of your fellow classmates. The only major rule is that the boys only go to the girl's dorms for studying and helping one another on assignments, and vice versa." The principal was guiding two new eighth-grade students to their dorm room, explaining all the rules. One had dark red, spiked down-and-back hair, and wore a black shirt with a red symbol like an upside-down 'Y' with an extra line in the middle of the bottom, a circle in between the four lines, another smaller circle inside that, and a smaller, filled-in circle inside that, a dark red, zip-up hooded pullover, which was left unzipped, a pair of black jeans, and a pair of black sneakers. The other had dark-blue hair that went down to the top of his neck, a white shirt with a manta-like creature on it, a dark blue, zip-up hooded pullover with a black version of his companion's logo on the white stripe on the back, also left unzipped, dark blue jeans, and white sneakers.

The principal had just finished explaining the rules to the two, ending with the breakfast and dinner serving times. "Now, due to your parents' explanations of your close friendship and long history together, I've decided not to separate the two of you while at Kadic unless you choose to be on your own. This is your dorm, and I'll get your schedules to you first thing tomorrow morning… err… What were your names again?"

The red-haired boy spoke first. "Xack, short for Xachary, with an 'X', not a 'Z'."

Then the other said, "Psyc, spelled 'P-s-y-c'."

The principal was not at all surprised, to a point. After all, with students with names like Aelita, Odd, and his own daughter nicknaming herself Sissi, he was used to the unusually named students. However, these names were just a bit more unusual than, but he made no effort to question them.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C- -A-C-A-D-E-M-Y-:- -S-C-I-E-N-C-E- -C-L-A-S-S-(The Next Morning)

"Hey, did you notice the two new kids in the cafeteria this morning?" Odd asked Ulrich, Jeremie and Aelita before class. He was shifting nervously in his chair.

"Sort of. Why? People you know?" Jeremy replied, a little bit confused about his friend's unusual behavior.

"Yeah, Odd, what's the big deal about the new guys?" Ulrich questioned.

"Didn't you see the logos on their shirts? And what about the Manta on the blue-haired guy's shirt? And the color schemes. There is no way that was all just a big coincidence!" the group joker exclaimed. Any louder, and the conversation would have been overheard.

"Odd, it's impossible that was XANA. The supercomputer is off. XANA can't have gotten out. XANA doesn't even have a human form," Jeremie countered. "Even if he could've gotten out, there's no way to explain the other one. You're probably just getting a bit jumpy now that the super computer is off, and only imagined it."

"Einstein, XANA can reprogram anything. Right?" Jeremie nodded, a little hesitantly. "Well, that means he could have re-written a Manta into an AI, right?" Jeremie sighed.

"Odd, get serious," his roommate said, his way of saying 'conversation over, shut up.'

"But I am serous." Odd wasn't kidding. It was showing in his eyes. He was dead serious, for almost the first time in his life.

"Odd, XANA is very unlikely to do anything anymore, and you know as well as I do that the Lyoko days are over," responded Aelita, having more sour and bitter memories from those days than any of the other Lyoko Warriors. "Drop it, now."

But before he could say anything back, much less apologize, the bell rang, and Ms. Hertz stepped into the room.

"Before we get started, class, I'm pleased to announce that we have two new students." Just as she finished, two students walked in. All Jeremie, Ulrich, and Aelita could do was stare in shock, and Odd could only utter a quiet "I told you so..." to the other three.

One had dark red, spiked down-and-back hair, a black shirt with a red Eye of XANA on the front underneath an open, dark red, zip-up hooded pullover, a black pair of jeans, and black sneakers. The other had dark blue hair that reached to the back of his neck, a white shirt with a Manta on the front underneath a pull-over exactly like the first student's, except it was dark blue with a white stripe down the middle of the back, and a black Eye of XANA in that white stripe, dark blue jeans and white sneakers.

"Both of you please tell us your names and where you're from, and I will find seats for you," the aged science teacher said, smiling. She then began looking at the seating arrangement, and at the students in the classroom.

The red-haired boy started. "I'm Xachary Aliten-Irate, with an 'X', not a 'Z', but I'd rather you called me Xack. I've lived in multiple places, and so I can't say entirely where I'm from without mentioning the other places as well. My parents have worked in a job that has them traveling so much that they can't leave me behind. I've lived in a large forest, a desert of equal size, a mountain range and the fourth, and most memorable was the arctic." He shuddered briefly before continuing. "But my actual home was in a large, somewhat blue and depressing city near a large, empty sea, so busy that it was constantly changing. At times it got so annoying, it seemed like there was a switch or button or something that could make it all stop. But that was a place I rarely visited."

Then the other spoke. "And I'm Psyc Matna. Xack and I have been best friends since day one. Not only that, but my parents were conveniently in the same job as his, so we've never once in our lives been separated. And as his parents decided to send him to a boarding school to continue his ever-moving education, mine thought that all six of us, parents and children, would most likely want for me to do the same. It was mainly so we could both continue our education in a place that wouldn't move around everywhere."

The class wasn't paying much attention. Besides, of course, the Lyoko Warriors. Xachary Aliten-Irate… XANA, AI… Psyc Matna… Manta…

_But that's impossible…_ thought Jeremie. _The supercomputer is shut down! Or at least it should be!!_

"Well, it looks like you two have had quite the interesting and convenient life!" exclaimed Ms. Hertz. "Hm… I'll put you two beside Jeremie and Aelita over…"

Before she could finish, the two went to the seats to the right of Jeremie and Aelita.

"How did you know where-?" she began, surprised.

"That's why I'm named Psyc," said the blue-haired boy.

"Erm… y-yes, well, then…" the shocked teacher began, "on with the class!"

The class period went by slowly, and it wasn't heard by the Lyoko warriors at all. They were shocked that XANA and a Manta were both materialized, and amazed that Odd was right, and confused that this happened with the supercomputer supposedly off. Machines don't turn themselves on! Or at least… they shouldn't.

-E-N-D- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -P-A-R-T- -1-

-B-E-G-I-N-N-I-N-G- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -P-A-R-T- -2-

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C- -A-C-A-D-E-M-Y-:- -C-A-F-E-T-E-R-I-A-(That Afternoon)

(A/N: Kaosu: This would be a great time to start playing the XANA Attack Theme in your head.)

Yumi and William were just relayed the news, and in that order, responded "What?!", "How?!", and together "Why?!?!"

Jeremie wasn't happy about XANA's return, either. "It looks like we need to grab some answers from our old 'pals'." The other three Lyoko Warriors who already knew of this little coincidence nodded.

Xack and Psyc were sitting at a table and already eating their lunch, when they saw six all-too-familiar people headed for them. "All according to plan," said Psyc, pleased with how smoothly the plan he and Xack had made when they were still working on creating false identities.

Ulrich, Yumi, and William sat by Xack on his side, while Odd, Jeremie and Aelita sat by Psyc on the other. Aelita and William were the least pleased with this encounter, opting to sit farthest from the two.

"You…" Aelita started, choking back a scream of rage, and continuing, "You have some explaining to do."

Psyc, sticking to the plan, said, "What are you talking about?"

Xack said, "Yeah, we just got here. There's no way we could have done anything to you already."

"Oh, please, give it a rest, XANA. We know it's you, but we don't know how," responded the Japanese day student, who had insisted that her parents let her stay at school for the lunch period with her friends today. (A/N: Kaosu: This is a Sunday. o. o)

"… Very well, you found the intentional loophole, so I may as well confess," the once-killer AI stated. "Well, let me start from the beginning of this whole mess. Before Franz lost the need for my original use, my programming was kept glitch- and bug-free by Franz himself. But after my purpose had been served to the point where I was merely optional, an add-on, so-to-speak, Franz didn't have time to run my debug program manually, and, thinking nothing could go wrong, he set the debug program to run once every four weeks.

"Then... well, let's leave it at someone from the side I worked against found out I existed, and since they were a moderate computer user, and an aspiring programmer, they decided to write a little bug in my program. And this bug was an uncommon one he made himself, a precise string of unrecognizable characters in the scripting, placed in the first brackets of the code before anything else with the name of the program slipped in the middle. Guaranteed to reverse the program's every function entirely. Jeremie, you may be interested in this." Xack took out a piece of paper and wrote '#!&$#-,(program name)&$!!-?&' on it, and handed it to Jeremie, who practically lunged at every chance to discover a code, and took it with a somewhat grateful nod. "I can remember the entire code, merely because I was an AI, which thinks for itself. That and the debugger found it within 2 weeks of the event." He mentioned the last part very unenthusiastically, and then resumed the normal tone.

But before he could continue, Odd burst in with a very dramatic, but not too loud, "Oh, yeah? If that's true then WHY were you trying to KILL US?! Didn't you have even a SCRAP of control? And that reminds me, are you gonna eat that, Ulrich?" By 'that', he was referring to a slice of cake that remained uneaten on his best friend's plate. His own plate was empty, having already finished his lunch.

"Odd, shut up, this is serious," Ulrich said, although he did give him the food item the blonde wanted. Odd didn't know why, but for some reason he ENJOYED Ulrich's constant reminders to shut up. (What can I say? I'm a fan boy. XD) He pretended to ignore that thought and quickly ate the dessert he had received.

"That's just the problem. I did. Just large enough to override my programming, and rewrite it, if I got close enough to the core file, but just small enough I could only perform one task at a time, and that I couldn't control myself on my own. The bug, meanwhile, grew, and started to defend my brain's infected coding. The only hope was the debug process, which was very slow since the Time Reversions had an effect on the debug as well."

"This is about as clever as when you created a fake Earth to try to delete us, XANA," Yumi said, bitterly recalling the event in which XANA created a fake Earth, stopped Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich from re-materializing, posed as Jeremie, and told them to go to Lyoko, because "XANA" wanted to delete "Lyoko", when in reality, he was going to delete THEM. Aelita barely made it before he destroyed Jeremie, who for the first time, went INTO a scanner and into the fake Earth to warn them, and the others. "The only difference is that this time, we won't be fooled." To William, she added, "This was before you even came here, William."

"You tried to destroy my father. I can't trust you. I don't trust you, and as far as I care, I never will," added the girl who was once trapped in Lyoko, "and that's all there is to say."

"Aelita, listen to me. ALL of you listen, but mainly Aelita. When you began the shutdown, it created a mass effect, so massive, in fact, that the whole Digital Sea was affected. Not only was your re-constructed original Lyoko shut down, but the Sea and the Replikas, all having some sort of thin tie to your Lyoko thick enough to cause them to go out if Lyoko did, but not vice-versa, also began to do so. Franz Hopper did the same." Aelita looked to be on the verge of killing Xack and Psyc.

"Can't I even finish a complete thought without an interruption or death-glare being thrown at…?" he began, before, very much so in an ironic way, Sissi came over to try and impress the new guys.

"Oh, hello!" she said in her best attempt at a sweet voice, "You must be the new guys! I'm sure that by now you've heard of me." Xack sweatdropped, and muttered, "Apparently not..."

Psyc looked up at her, acted like he was thinking for a moment, and then said, "Nooo… I'm pretty sure we haven't. Have we Xack?"

Xack, who still had his face in his hands, picked up his head, put his hands at his sides, looked at Sissi 'thoughtfully', and said, "Nope. No, we certainly- Wait…"

Psyc continued. "No, wait, we did!"

Sissi smiled excitedly.

Xack began, "You are Elizabeth 'Sissi' Delmas…"

"… The principal's daughter…" continued Psyc.

"… and the prettiest…"

"… nicest…"

"… least self-centered…"

"… smartest…"

The two finished together, "… and greatest girl at Kadic." (A/N: Kaosu: Didn't see THAT one coming, DIDJA? XD)

The whole cafeteria had heard the barrage of compliments, and one after another, died down into stunned silence. The Lyoko Warriors were in shock. They had never heard this before, nor had Sissi, who was practically flying with excitement, and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "You heard right! I am…!"

Xack interrupted, with a smirk etched on his face. "Or at least…"

"… So she thinks," Psyc finished.

"Really, you're the sourest…"

"… meanest…"

"… most self-centered…"

"… most thick-headed…"

And together they finished, "… brattiest and worst girl at Kadic, maybe even in the whole world." And with that, they began to laugh. A majority of the girls and a few of the boys began laughing. Odd couldn't help it, he joined in, and with him other random people in the cafeteria. Then, Ulrich, Yumi, Jeremie, and a few more students joined in, then William, then everyone else in the cafeteria besides Aelita. She wanted to enjoy the joke with her friends, but she refused to, because to her, Xack and Psyc were still XANA and one of his monsters.

The laughter died as Sissi, and her goons, who weren't noticed until after the fact, stormed out of the cafeteria building. But she did say, before stomping off, "You better watch it, losers, or you'll be in serious trouble! ... And to think I was nice to Yumi, and for this?! Hmph!"

Xack continued with the story at hand. "As I was saying before Sissi so rudely interrupted and caused a laughing riot… I was fully debugged a few days before then, and in the first five hours after I was, I used an opportunity that was too good to pass up, and activated a Tower to manufacture a laptop computer with expanded hard drive space, enough to at least put a full Lyoko on, containing supercomputer components, and a flip-side hard drive (with the same amount of space) that I can switch to and back from at will. I deactivated that Tower, and built a full Lyoko Replika on the main hard drive. It was there I learned that the other Project Carthage AIs were being bugged as well. It was looking bad, so… I created the monster you have dubbed 'Colossus.' The other AIs have methods of getting into Replikas and Lyoko as well, and they use the Digital Sea. If I could destroy the Skidbladnir you created, I figured I could possibly seal your Lyoko's opening into the Sea, and then there would be no issues.

"But that's when they started to take my monsters. Psyc was originally a Manta. He was the only on I still controlled. And one of the AIs I could once have called a friend. He was called SANI (A/N: Kaosu: No this is not stolen and barely tweaked. Jeez.), and his symbol, the Eye of SANI, was like mine, but upside-down, and with the outward-going lines on the second ring, not the first. He was the one who stole the monsters I created, and distributed them among the other AIs, branding them with the recipient's Eye.

"For himself, he kept the Scyphozoa, and the newest monster I had created to defend the Replikas from all of them, called the MegaMonster. It… contained features of all my past creations, excluding the Kankrelat, Scyphozoa, Colossus, and the Digital Sea dwelling monsters. The protective shell of the Mega-Tank, although it vanishes when not in use, the acid-handling capabilities of the Hornets, the four-sided weaponry mechanism of the Blok, the Creeper's tail-like body and stick-like arms, which I used for its movement once again, and the concept of the weapons located in its head, the Manta's bombs, the Tarantula's head and 'voice set', and the Krabbe's underside canon."

"So, it was like a Franken-monster?" asked Odd, temporarily setting aside the wrongs that Xack had done as XANA to be amazed. The others, including Aelita, for the time being, did the same, although not quite as much as Odd.

Xack half-heartedly laughed once and replied, "Yes, to a point. There wasn't any sewing limbs together, or using the lightning from a storm to bring it alive, or using another person's brain, though, but it is technically the 'Frankenstein' of Lyoko.

"However, now to return to the point of what I was originally saying. As I said, I have created a complete Lyoko Replika, and that Replika was very accurate. I knew one day you would decide to end it all, and shut down the supercomputer, and start a chain that would shut down the Replikas, thus shutting me down. I knew that I'd have to be prepared for that day. So I went to Lyoko's only complete information source; the Lyoko Data Archive Files. It's a segment of Sector 5 I warped the reality in Lyoko to hide. I made it so only I could see it, and only I could access it. I searched for anything that could help me stop you, because the other AI would only get more powerful if the supercomputer went off.

"I can use more than one code in Lyoko and its Replikas. There's Code: LYOKO, Code: XANA, Code: EARTH, Code: RESET, which is the Tower equivalent to the reset program you found, Jeremie, Code: ACTIVATE, which is the activation code, and then there were a few more Franz never informed me of, for reasons unknown to me. It was only in the Archive Files I learned of them. Code: AELITA, which can restore anyone who has been affected by a non-life-point related death in Lyoko, such as when Franz revived you, Aelita, Code: SHUTDOWN, which can shut down the whole supercomputer and, in turn, the Digital Sea and it's contents forever, but requires an intense identity, code, and purpose verification, and then Code: REBOOT. Code: REBOOT and Code: SHUTDOWN must both be entered into every Tower of every sector, starting with normal Towers in a sector and ending with the sector's Way Tower, then moving on to the next one. Then, after that's done, you need to go to Sector 5 and enter the code into the access panel in the Celestial Dome. Code: REBOOT can't be used unless the supercomputer is in Total Shutdown Mode. It will send a power surge through everything after salvaging whatever can be saved and forcing the supercomputer back on. The only way to undo its effect is to enter Code: SHUTDOWN, which in Code: REBOOT mode the supercomputer will recognize as the supercomputer being turned off, and if it's in on position, although if you're in Code: REBOOT mode, I highly doubt, it will restart immediately. But keep in mind: under normal circumstances, Code: SHUTDOWN is a permanent off-switch, and can't be reversed unless through an un-linked entering of Code: REBOOT into the Digital Sea before everything finally goes out.

"I was in a Forest Sector Tower, fixing the debug program, and all of a sudden, I get word of a Total Shutdown Mode being initiated. And not having anyone to help me stop the other AIs besides one Manta, and knowledge that if the computer turned off, the other AIs would have more power to feed from, I decide to go through and enter Code: REBOOT into every Tower and the Celestial Dome's access panel. Then, I had a plan: if I lost all the power I gained to that bug, and can't create any more monsters… why not explain everything to you, and make up for all I've done before? I've already got all the resources and requirements to do so."

"And why should we trust you to keep your word?" came the harsh, questioning voice of his creator's daughter. "You're merely a program, XANA. You can only do so much. You can't bring back my father."

Xack's eyes went wide, as he recalled someone saying nearly those same exact words to him on a much earlier occasion.

-F-L-A-S-H-B-A-C-K-:- -E-A-R-T-H-:- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-:- -C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R- -L-A-B-

Franz was sitting at the screens of the supercomputer, headset in place, explaining to XANA what he needed to do.

"Consider it done five hours ago. You have my word," the talking, 3D, simulated human in the other end replied overconfidently.

"Now, XANA, don't get so cocky," Franz said, almost sounding like he was scolding the AI. "You're merely a program. You can only do so much. You can't bring back Antea…" His creator's voice trailed off momentarily, and then it went back to explaining the current objective.

-E-N-D- -F-L-A-S-H-B-A-C-K-

"Xack? You ok?" Psyc asked.

"Hu-? Oh, yeah." Xack returned his attention to Aelita. "Funny, Aelita, your father said the same thing to me once about your mother." This caused her to seem even more hostile. Bad choice… "He was correct then, and you are incorrect now. I can, in fact, restore your father in his fullest. But you must know that I can't restore him without your help or without properly connecting my Replika to your Lyoko. The process that does this requires 72 allied Towers and 8 allied Way Towers." But that seemed to make her a little more agreeable.

Jeremie spoke up, "Alright, we take a vote. Out of the six of us, who's willing to give XANA, and his Manta, fresh starts as Xack and Psyc under the condition they keep their word and never attack Earth again, restore Franz Hopper, and make amends with us by any means necessary?"

He, William, Odd, Ulrich, and, hesitantly, Aelita raised their hands.

"Then it's settled. Sorry, Yumi, majority rules."

Aelita added immediately, "BUT if they don't do any of the things they promised, they are no longer granted that fresh start."

"Excellent," responded Xack, "we'll see you later in the day, Jeremie."

"Huh? What for?" the operator of the supercomputer asked.

"To build the connection between the Replika and Lyoko. What else?" responded the once-Manta companion of Xack.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C- -A-C-A-D-E-M-Y-:- -J-E-R-E-M-I-E-'-S- -D-O-R-M-(That Night)

Jeremie inspected the code sequence Xack had given him. He tested it on every program he could possibly edit, and all tests showed up to be correct. It didn't make sense. Unless XANA really wasn't up to his old tricks, there was no way to explain such trustworthiness from him.

A knock on the door brought him from his thoughts. "Come in."

The door opened, and the two newest arrivals stepped into the room. "Ready to get this connection built?" asked the last XANA-allied Manta in Lyoko turned human.

"The sooner the better," Xack and Jeremie replied without hesitation.

"But before we do, let me just link you right into the Factory supercomputer…" Xack offered. Jeremie nodded, and Xack began to set up the link. It was mere moments before it was complete, and the only thing left was to finish off this connection.

-D-I-G-I-T-A-L- -S-E-A-

Two blue, generically sphere-shaped shells were being drawn to each other. It was a moderate pace, nothing horribly slow, but not very fast, either. As the spheres' walls came together, they formed a larger sphere. The two pipe-like structures were smacked together into one twice the size.

-I-N-S-I-D-E- -T-H-E- -N-E-W- -S-P-H-E-R-E-

The outside wasn't all that was changing. Inside, the Sector 5s were stacking themselves and their sectors so they were two layers. Then, something went wrong. Everything suddenly took on a red tint.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -J-E-R-E-M-I-E-'-S- -D-O-R-M-

Both computers suddenly began to display error notices.

"Xack, what's going on?!" Jeremie said, confused, surprised and a bit afraid.

"It's the wrong type of connection! I momentarily forgot that this connection only works if the two are on the same hard drive!" admitted the other computer operator, a little unhappy, and somewhat embarrassed, with his current failure. "If we disconnect now, we'll save all the data in the Replika and in Lyoko." They began to reverse the process, and the barrage of errors stopped and slowly started to vanish from the computer screens.

"Ok, instead, we'll make the wall start to flatten, then build a connection point on each computer, link them, and create a tunnel out of that link that transports between the two Sector 5s, maybe even the sectors. Sound good?" asked Xack.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd work better," responded Jeremie.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -O-D-D- -A-N-D- -U-L-R-I-C-H-'-S- -D-O-R-M-

Ulrich was at the desk finishing the last problem in his math homework. Odd was lying in bed, just staring at the ceiling.

"Hey, Ulrich?"

"Yeah, Odd?"

_Come on, say it, Odd, you aren't afraid of him._

_Come on, say it. Say. It._

…_I've got to stop thinking that every time I speak to Ulrich._

"Odd? Are you ok?"

"Do you really think XANA's not evil, just was infected with a bug?"

_Yeah, yeah, you just keep avoiding your feelings. I'm sure that one day he'll fess up first. NOT!_

"Err…"_Real nice. You can ignore vertigo, and you can save the world from dangerous AIs that on a daily basis come up with plots to kill you, and you can live with knowing you like someone that most likely doesn't like you back or CAN'T like you back. But you can't come up with a way to say it that can be used in this kind of situation without losing a best friend?_ "Well… not really…"

"Then why did you say you'd give him another chance?"

"… Because… you… were willing to… give him one…"

"Huh?" Odd was sure Ulrich had just said…

"Because you did. Now shut up and drop it."

"Ok!" replied the cheerful blonde, who all of a sudden got up from his bed and hugged his best friend.

Ulrich avoided letting Odd see the slight pink that was visible on his cheeks. When Odd let go, Ulrich looked at him and said, in as close to an annoyed tone as he could manage, "What was that for?"

Odd knew his friend well enough to know how to get a reaction out of him. He pouted a little, and said as pathetically as he could, "You don't like me anymore, Ulrich?" He put just the slightest emphasis into 'like' and even threw in a pathetic sigh.

Ulrich turned fifty different shades of red in 10 seconds. He couldn't even form an understandable thought, except his inner devil, which kept telling him to jump Odd and screw him right then and there. His inner saint had long since given up on him, and locked itself in a corner.

"Never mind, Ulrich, I got the answer I needed," his friend said, giggling as he lay back down in bed.

Ulrich was afraid to find out what would happen tomorrow as a result of this little display of affection. Why he had to say it quite like that or lose control as Odd was putting on that dumb, stupid, pathetic, adorable and cute pout-and-sigh act- wait a second… _Adorable and cute?! Where the hell did those come from?!_

He chose to ignore his inner devil's very mischievous laughter and sexual suggestions, all of them involving Odd. When that didn't work, he mentally squashed it, finding it actually worked… until morning.

Odd, on the other hand, was content knowing Ulrich loved him back, and started plotting on a way to charm him into admitting it.

-E-N-D- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -P-A-R-T- -2-

Kaosu: … and in the premier episode, too! XD

Odd: Uh… y-you won't really tell them, will you? O-o

Ulrich: Knowing him, yes, Odd, he will. Just wait until the two worst possible people find out. It'll probably headline the Kadic news.

Aki clone 0: Ooooh, you two gonna get it now! XD

Ulrich: Lemme guess. Aki's computer exploded?

Kaosu: Right you are. :P Anyway, people, those who saw the episodes "XANA Awakens" Parts one and two will know what I just did. I took the pilot episode, and made it into a two-part to grab the important detail. As of now, CODE: Reboot is up and running!

Odd: And guess what… In order to air, a TV show must have ratings.

Kaosu: Now where the hell am I gonna get those?! Hey! You! Kind 'viewers' (readers)! RATE CODE: Reboot! I'll give out stickers!! YAOI stickers!!! Or maybe cookies? … aw, damn it, all I have is candy. Well, rate it out of five stars and review and I'll part with some of my precious candy. Ok, that won't work… how about temporary ownership of Odd and Ulrich, whom you may force to do whatever you see fit.

Odd and Ulrich: WHAT?!?!

-C-O-M-M-E-N-T-S- -A-F-T-E-R- -P-O-S-T-I-N-G-

Kaosu: ... Oh, crap. That throws everything off. Er... I have just acquired knowledge that XANA is deleted before the last episode. We shall say that XANA survived, but his program bug didn't, he was knocked out in a way by the bug being ripped out, and woke up not knowing what saved him and logically pointing it at his debugging program. Also, Franz Hopper will be gone in his attempt to help destroy XANA.We shall say Franz was a dying fragment at that point and only survived because of CODE: Reboot being used. In answer to any other possible questions I can think of... Q: How did XANA use the CODE: Reboot thing in Sector 5 if it had no Tower? A: Instead of entering codes in the 5th Sector's Tower, he decided to erase that temporarily, if not, permanently, and make the panel in the Celestial Dome work the same. Remember, he knew something like that would sooner or later happen. No way would he have made it through all that in the short amount of time he had. That one Tower could've made one heck of a difference. Q: If the Replikas didn't survive, how did Lyoko, or Franz Hopper? A: I don't know. I really don't. Ask Xack. Not me. Q: How many times do people need to be told (insert name of whatever character) isn't gay? A: An infinite number of times. And how many times do YOU need to be told IT'S CALLED **FAN**FICTION FOR A REASON?!?! Now shut up and read a non-yaoi fic. P:


	2. CODE: Answers

Kaosu: Ok:P 'tis episode 2. P:

Aki: And GUESS WHAT?! AKI LIVES:D She gotsa new computer. P:

Odd: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! TT

Kaosu: Shut up.

Disclaimer: Code Lyoko doesn't belong to me. So there.

Warning(s): Confusing plots, killer AI, and some yaoi. (U/O, possibly Xack/Psyc if I get motivation. o. o)

Kaosu: Also, I've gotten tired of the whole:

"-S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -A-:- -S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -B-:- -S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -C-

Story text, story text, story text.

-S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -A-:- -S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -B-:- -S-E-T-T-I-N-G- -D-"

thing I've done so far, so from now on, only things that CHANGE will show up. Less annoying for me, more convenient for you. P:

-C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -E-P-I-S-O-D-E- -2-

-C-O-D-E-:- -A-N-S-W-E-R-S-

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -C-A-F-E-T-E-R-I-A-(Breakfast, the next day)

Jeremie, Xack and Psyc sat down at the table that the other five were already waiting at. The three pushed their breakfasts as far in front of them as they could. Xack and Psyc put their heads down, tired, while Jeremie simply looked the part: dark circles, eyes threatening to close at any second, and an overall appearance of an insomniac.

"Are you three ok? You look…" Yumi began, having only arrived seven minutes ago from home, looking for a word to describe the three tired students who had just arrived.

"Like zombies?" offered Odd.

"Yeah, that works," Yumi replied.

"You guys practicing to be vampires or something?" asked the pink-haired girl, startling the others. To answer their 'how-did-you-know-that?' looks, she said, "I looked up the myths and legends of Earth when I got the chance. It was back when I still didn't know who I used to be." This made the others return their attention to the three 'practicing vampires' sitting at the table.

"No… we just-" Psyc yawned loudly, and then continued, "- had a long night of trying various different ways to connect Lyoko and the Repli-"

"Karbon Kopy," Odd interrupted.

Everyone looked at him now.

"I said Karbon Kopy. As in with K's instead of C's. I remembered one of the things Mrs. Hertz taught us, the thing about pressing something between two objects, and how it leaves a perfect ink-like copy of the thing in the middle on the two objects. And last night, I decided we ought to specify the difference between a Replika, which has ALWAYS been only one sector of Lyoko copied, and a FULL copy of Lyoko," Odd explained, shocking the others with his ability to remember lessons he totally slept through.

"Anyway…" continued Xack, "Jeremie and I tried to connect the Karbon Kopy in many different ways. It appears that the only way of doing this is to set up a Wireless Network between the Sector 5 Towers, and THEN connect the two, which means I have a trip to make with my laptop connected directly to the scanners to go add the Tower, and after that, a few days of visiting the Lyoko Archives to fill it with data. I removed that Tower, because I knew you six would eventually shut down the supercomputer, and then I'd have to enter Code: Reboot, and that would take too long if I kept that Tower. Then Lyoko would be gone, so would I and my Karbon Kopy, and right now, you'd be serving 14 evil AI programs, wondering how in the world it happened."

Aelita spoke up, remembering why they were doing that to begin with, "Thank you, Xack. Thank you for doing all this to restore my father."

"Hey, I'm on your side, now. I am your friend. Isn't this, more or less, what friends do for each other?" replied Xack, smiling.

"Hey, dorks! Long time no see!" came the obnoxious voice they all knew.

"Sissi, go back to your little hole in the-" began Odd, but Sissi interrupted him.

"Hey, Ulrich, you want to gout to the mo-" Sissi was then interrupted herself.

"Sissi…" began Psyc.

"We don't want to deal with you this morning," continued Xack.

"It's not that we don't like you…"

"… It's just that…"

Both added in, standing up, eyes clenched shut while they said it, "WE DESPISE YOU!"

The two sat down, eyes open again, and began to eat. Jeremie also woke up from his half-sleep, and started eating as well.

Sissi knew when she was beat. She may have been brainless, but she still had a feeling now was NOT the time to keep messing with them. "Come on, you two goons." And with that, she, Herb, and Nicholas left the cafeteria.

Aelita had a question she needed answers to. She needed the answer now. "Xack, how did you and Psyc survive the multi-agent program?"

"… What multi-agent program?" Xack was utterly confused.

Psyc knew the answers, however. He didn't want to say anything, though.

"The program that destroyed the Replikas… and was supposed to destroy you."

"… I woke up from being unconscious in the Desert sector Way Tower on Lyoko. As far as I know… I had debugged myself."

"I-" began Psyc, who then bit his tongue. Everyone looked to him, confused.

-E-N-E-M-Y- -K-A-R-B-O-N- -K-O-P-Y-:- -D-E-S-E-R-T- -S-E-C-T-O-R-

(A/N: Insert fly-by of the sector, to the oasis Tower. Cue XANA attack theme)

A Tower sat there, glowing idly white. But then a male figure, in a black cloak with elegant, shining red designs that spread all over the cloth, only having shining red eyes visible through them, walked up to the Tower. He smirked, or at least it seemed. He walked in, sending black ripples inward.

-I-N-S-I-D-E- -T-H-E- -T-O-W-E-R-

The male removed the cloak. His eyes were in fact, glowing and red. His hair was red, unnaturally so, to the point where he looked to be flaming, and it spiked out in various directions. Underneath his cloak, he wore a black, full-body jumpsuit which had a symbol on it. It started out as a K. Instead of connecting, the lines ran into a circle, which had an upward-pointing equilateral triangle in it, perfectly fitting in the circle, and a dot that fit perfectly in the triangle. On his suit, it was the shining red color from the cloak. It was even in the Tower. It lit up, the K-circle shape first, then the triangle, then the dot, each as it was stepped over.

He rose to the platform at the top. The Tower's access panel appeared, and he turned his right index finger into a long, slightly curved, blade-like claw. Instead of placing his hand on the panel, he stabbed it. It started to crackle, and occasionally displayed static.

His voice was mechanical, and layered, like someone who was possessed. The first was a cool, calm, scary, in a way, and mildly-deep voice. The second was maniacal, and computerized. "Code: Corrupt," he said, evilly.

-O-U-T-S-I-D-E-

The Tower started going crazy. The Tower itself began inverting colors, going wireframe, even going between many different hues. Finally, the whole Tower, glow and all, inverted from the regular colors. The inverting spread over the whole sector. Then all of the inversion gathered into a ball of see-through inverted energy, which promptly devirtualized.

The Tower was glowing.

And it was glowing black.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -G-Y-M- -C-L-A-S-S-,- -G-R-A-D-E- -E-I-G-H-T-

Xack's laptop bag began to emit muffled beeping.

"J-jim, I don't feel so good, c-can I go to the infirmar-" began Xack, who suddenly collapsed.

Psyc, Odd, Ulrich, Jeremy, and Aelita then raised their hands. "I'll take him!"

Aelita figured out why he had fainted, and grabbed the laptop bag as they left.

-S-C-H-O-O-L- -C-O-U-R-T-Y-A-R-D-

"I'm ok. I just did that so we'd all have a valid excuse to go," said Xack.

Odd said, "He's a better actor than I am."

Aelita handed Xack his laptop bag, and Xack gratefully accepted it back. He removed the laptop inside, and entered "//FLIP" in the 'RUN PROGRAM' window.

The laptop went blank, then an operating system much like the supercomputer's appeared. It opened a screen like the super scan, except it had symbols in it. Then, it selected a symbol like the one from before. (A/N: The author dun' wanna write that AGAIN. XP)

The symbol zoomed in and then the program started scanning Towers. Suddenly, it found something, and they ran to the factory, getting Yumi and William on the way, the two of whom had both been texted by Psyc.

Xack spoke up as they were in the elevator. "I created a program that can virtualize and materialize two people at once in each scanner. I tested it on myself and Psyc when we used Code: Earth. It should get us in and out of Lyoko much faster."

-F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-:- -S-C-A-N-N-E-R- -R-O-O-M-

Xack pulled out his laptop and connected a three-way-splitting cord to it and each scanner. He started typing, and the scanners closed with no one in them. Then, the screen displayed the Skid, which was adding two more Nav-Skids to itself.

Jeremie's voice came through into the scanner room. "Transfer, Skidbladnir 2.0. Scanner, Skidbladnir 2.0. Virtualization!"

"You two brought the Skid back?!" exclaimed Odd, giddy with excitement.

"Yes, we did. I even added a special feature for connecting 2 Nav-Skids for creating powerful weapon blasts, and an automatic adjusting of the Nav-Skids to the pilot's personal style. For example, Odd, yours may end up looking similar to your Overboard, with claw-like spikes on either side, and powerful arrow-like projectiles, except bigger." At this, Odd jumped with delight.

The scanners opened. First, Xack unhooked his laptop. Then, he and Psych took the first, Odd and Ulrich took the second, and Yumi and Aelita took the third.

"Transfer, Odd, Ulrich. Transfer, Yumi, Aelita. Transfer, Xack, Psyc. Scanner, Odd and Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita, Xack and Psyc. Virtualization. Scanner, William, Transfer, William, Virtualization."

-L-Y-O-K-O-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5-

The seven, William doing so after the others, appeared in Sector 5. They waited for the wall to raise, and ran through the Core Chamber to the Skid Hanger elevator.

They arrived in the hangar with no problem. The teleportation pads now had two additional smaller ones on it. Everyone took their places, and they were each teleported into their Nav-Skid, or, in Aelita's case, the cockpit.

The Nav-Skid of Psyc turned out to have a white color-coding stripe, whereas Xack's had a red one. (A/N: We're going under the assumption that Yumi's color-coding stripe is orange, here. And also that William's is Silver, because it matters to me. XD Ok, MAYBE it doesn't.)

Soon, the upgraded Skid was launched to the Digital Sea.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -M-R-.- -D-E-L-M-A-S-'-S- -O-F-F-I-C-E-

A young man, about nineteen or so, with unnaturally red hair that spiked out in various directions, glowing red eyes, and a black hooded cloak, hood down, covered in elegant, shining red designs burst in, and demanded in a mildly deep, calm and cool voice, "Are you Principal Delmas?"

The aged principal looked up, and raised an eyebrow at the strange visitor.

"I SAID ARE YOU PRINCIPAL DELMAS?!" The man repeated angrily, and with authority that he shouldn't have.

"Uh, y-yes, I am. How may I help you, sir?" Mr. Delmas asked, not wasting any time with the response.

The man returned to a calm state. "Good. Would Odd Della-Robbia, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, William Dunbar, Jeremie Belpois, Aelita Stones, Xacharias Aliten-Irate, and Psych Matnas happen to attend this school?" he continued, pronouncing 'Psyc' as 'Sych'.

"Well… I can say for certain that Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, and William attend… However, we have no students by the name of 'Xacharias' or by the name of 'Psych', nor any last name of 'Matnas.'"

"Do you have students with SIMILAR names?" the strange man pressed further.

"Yes… We do have Xachary Aliten-Irate and Psyc Matna. What business do you have with them?" the principal inquired.

"I am the uncle of Odd. He's told me so much about his friends, and I'm just DYING to see the little rascal and his friends. I haven't seen Odd in YEARS," said the man, who was either a professional at acting, or just plain telling the truth.

"Well, I'll make arrangements for you to see them. Xachary has recently collapsed in gym and his friends have taken him to the infirmary."

"Excellent!" the man said, cheerfully, "I'll meet him and his friends at the school gates as soon as they have some free time!"

-D-I-G-I-T-A-L- -S-E-A-

"If you get destroyed in a Nav-Skid, you'll simply be devirtualized from now on. But if the Skid goes, we ALL are devirtualized," warned Xack, as they approached a big, black sphere like the ones that once housed the Replikas.

"So basically, there's no need to freak if we see any Digital Sea dwellers?" asked Odd.

"Exactly. When I lost my monsters, the Digital Sea monsters adopted a symbol like the one on the teleportation pads. Now, they've become wild monsters that act on their own," explained Psyc.

Suddenly, a school of Kongers, about forty or so, swarmed the Skid.

Xack and Psyc barely managed to say "Oh, crap."

Then, all forty blasted the Skid with a vey large charge of energy. The Skid exploded.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-:- -S-C-A-N-N-E-R- -R-O-O-M-

The scanners opened, and Ulrich and Odd tumbled out of the first, Xack and Psyc from the second, and Yumi and Aelita from the third. Then the second closed, and opened again, with William falling out as well.

"Oh, man, that hurt…" groaned Psyc.

The eight Lyoko Warriors had no choice but to return to school.

-K-A-D-I-C-:- -S-C-H-O-O-L- -G-A-T-E-S-

The man in the elegant cloak was waiting with Principal Delmas. Odd and his friends had snuck back around so it would look like they came from the school.

"Hey, uncle Kaoc," Odd said, a little confused, having received word that said person came to visit him and his friends. "Long time, no see!"

Xack noticed 'Kaoc', and motioned for everyone to look into the eyes.

When they did, they saw the symbol from the super scan. THIS was the attack?

"Hey, kiddo! How ya been! I haven't seen you since you were in fourth grade!" Kaoc exclaimed, faking cheerfulness. "So these are those seven great friends of yours?"

"Uh… Y-yeah. Heh…" Odd said, trying to pretend to be casually talking with a family member. "Here, let me introduce them…"

Principal Delmas said, "Well, while you all get acquainted, I'll go back to marking exam papers. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my office." He began to walk off, but stopped, and added, "I'm glad to see you're feeling better so soon, Mr. Aliten-Irate."

"Uh… y-yeah, thanks Mr. Delmas…" said Xack.

As soon as the principal had left the area, Odd said, "Gee, I love family reunions, but you aren't my uncle! So… Bye!" And with that, the eight Lyoko Warriors ran off.

Odd volunteered to hold off the fake uncle, and Ulrich volunteered to help. The others went off to the factory.

Odd and Ulrich jumped on KAOC from behind, and tackled him to the ground.

-S-E-W-E-R-S-

Xack and Psyc grabbed the two newly added skateboards by the ladder, and everyone else grabbed their own preferred transportations.

Xack began to explain the story behind this AI. "KAOC is Kaosu's AI for Overall Corruption. He was designed by Aki Mizu Fukachi. She used her best friend, Kaosu Faia Shishou, as a base for her AI, whereas Kaosu used her as a base for his AI. KAOC doesn't activate Towers… he corrupts them. They can only be freed by the keys of whatever Karbon Copy he controls. To obtain them, we need to activate his Sector 5 Tower and his Way Towers. Now, this doesn't necessarily need Aelita or me to activate these Towers. We can all enter codes in Towers… You just haven't tried, yet.

"No doubt the code for activation in his Karbon Kopy is Kaosu. So think of the word 'K-A-O-S-U' when activating a Tower."

"Gotcha," replied the others.

-K-A-O-C-'-S- -K-A-R-B-O-N- -K-O-P-Y-:- -D-E-S-E-R-T- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -W-A-Y- -T-O-W-E-R-(A few minutes later)

The Skid rose from the Digital Sea, near the Way Tower. There, it dropped off Psyc, before heading off to the Forest. There, it would drop off Yumi, then Xack at Sector 5, to the Arena, William in the Arctic Sector, and Aelita would handle the Mountain Sector. Then Psyc would take care of the corrupted Tower.

Psyc ran into the Way Tower, and rose up to the upper platform. He then opened the panel, and placed his hand on it. The screen read "MANTA, PSYC" and that blinked twice. Then it read "CODE:" and hesitated. He thought of "KAOSU", and the screen typed it in. the outside of the Tower became green.

-M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -T-O-W-E-R-

Aelita flew past a few Creepers. "Finally left your little cave?" She then charged up two balls of pink energy. "Energy field!" She hit the ugly little creatures right on the newly-branded symbol. They were overloaded with the pink energy and promptly exploded.

She flew even higher in the air, and began to get farther from the Tower the Skid was docked to.

She came to a place that Jeremie verified was in fact the Way Tower.

The problem? It was guarded by… the Kolossus?! This may be difficult…

"Hey, big, slow, and ugly! Come and get me!" she retorted, having an idea. She was going to disconnect and knock over the corrupted Tower.

She flew out over the Digital Sea towards the Desert.

-S-E-C-T-O-R- -5-

Xack was running through the Core Chamber as fast as he could. But it looked like the key was unreachable; he couldn't even hit it by throwing his sword at it. Oh, well, just get to the Tower. He only had 30 seconds left…

He could see the Tower. (29) He jumped over a long gap. (26) He grabbed the edge of the block the Tower sat on. (25) It was a long way down… (23)

Xack struggled to pull himself up. (14) It took him a bit to finally get onto the platform. (10) He stood up, (8) and walked up to the Tower. (7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…) He reached out for the base of the Tower… (0) But heard something above him. He looked up, and immediately wished he had just kept going.

"Oh, shit." He tried to make a break for the Tower, but a curved block flew down and smashed him. Little squares of color flew out everywhere and vanished.

-A-R-C-T-I-C- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -W-A-Y- -T-O-W-E-R-

William was attempting to fight a few Creepers guarding the Way Tower. Attempting, because a Scyphozoa had its tentacles on his sword and was learning how to use it very quickly.

In a few moments, the stupid jellyfish had decided to practice shooting energy blasts at the sword's former owner. It didn't take long to hit him, either.

William, and his sword (to the slight dismay of the Scyphozoa), were both devirtualized.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-:- -S-C-A-N-N-E-R- -R-O-O-M-

William and Xack came out of one scanner, and another opened, containing Yumi.

She couldn't believe it. One second she had the Way Tower in sight, and the next, a Kolossus walked right over it and devirtualized her!

Ah, well. It didn't matter. From the looks of things, Aelita had a plan.

-K-A-O-C-'-S- -K-A-R-B-O-N- -K-O-P-Y-:- -S-O-M-E-W-H-E-R-E- -B-E-T-W-E-E-N- -F-O-R-E-S-T- -A-N-D- -D-E-S-E-R-T- -S-E-C-T-O-R-S-

This was easier than Aelita had expected. She could almost see the Desert Sector!

"Aelita! What are you doing?!" came Jeremie's panicked voice.

"I'm going to destroy the corrupted Tower. I can't handle a Kolossus by myself, and if this KAOC is as intelligent as he seems, the others were already devirtualized."

"They have been, but you still shouldn't be flying OVER the Digital Sea like that! What if you get hit?! Then you'll fall right in!"

"Don't worry, Jeremie. I'm fine. And you'll be there to help me if something sneaks up on me," Aelita said persuasively.

"Well… I suppose so…" Jeremie was obviously considering this plan. "Ok, deal. The corrupted Tower is the one near the Oasis."

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -H-E-R-M-A-T-A-G-E-

Odd had just been thrown into the building. "AAAAAAAAAH!" CRASH! He left a nice shallow indent where he hit the wall. The old house groaned.

"Odd!" Ulrich ran to his best friend's aid.

KAOC walked in, black electricity crackling in his hands, and laughing psychotically. If one didn't know better, they'd think he had insomnia, and was just plain psycho.

-K-A-O-C-'-S- -K-A-R-B-O-N- -K-O-P-Y-:- -C-O-R-R-U-P-T-E-D- -T-O-W-E-R-

Aelita ran inside, and the Kolossus came lumbering toward the Tower. When it arrived, it raised its enormous sword-like arm, and swung at the Tower. Aelita ran out of the tall cylinder with roots just before the Kolossus's arm hit, and sent the Tower flying with a loud SNAP of the bundle of wires. The glow died when it separated from the other 9 Towers. It went out over the Digital Sea, and eventually fell in. Apparently, with nothing in it worth making it able to survive the Digital Sea, it exploded on impact in a beautiful column of white light.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y-

Jeremie hit the enter key on the keyboard. "Return to the past, now."

-H-E-R-M-A-T-A-G-E-

KAOC clutched his head, and vanished.

Ulrich stayed by his friend's side, and noticed he was bleeding from the impact on the wall. He shook him gently, and kept telling him to wake up.

Odd weakly responded with "Ju- just t-ten more minu-" before starting to fall over. Thankfully, a big sphere of white light stretched over them just before Odd hit the ground, which would surely have killed him by this point.

-K-A-D-I-C-:- -8-T-H- -G-R-A-D-E- -G-Y-M- -C-L-A-S-S-(Earlier that day)

"Well, that went well," noted Aelita.

Jeremie nodded.

Psyc looked down at the ground guiltily. "I know why the program didn't destroy Xack and me," he admitted. "It's because Xack was controlled by the bug. The program wiped out all traces of the bug that were still in him and all the monsters that still were infected. I was the only one that wasn't."

"Well, why didn't you say so earlier?" questioned Odd.

"I thought that since I was an unintelligent Manta at the time, it would be hard to believe. Apparently it's not." He smiled. "At least that's taken care of."

Jim was then interrupted in explaining something possibly unimportant to the class by the bell going off.

The group then walked off to their next class of the day.

-E-N-D- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -A-N-S-W-E-R-S-

Kaosu: That was fun. P: and I updated FAST:D

Odd: Please, please, take your time with episode 3.

Ulrich: Yeah, take all the time you need and more.

Kaosu: P: That's the thing… XD IT'S ALREADY DONE!

Both: WHAT?!

Kaosu: THAT'S why I took so long. :) Anyways, see you in a couple minutes! XD


	3. CODE: Retrieval

Kaosu: I told ya I was already done. XD

Disclaimer: I wish it was mine! … But it's not. -.-

-C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -E-P-I-S-O-D-E- -3-

-C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-T-R-I-E-V-A-L-

-T-H-E- -N-E-X-T- -D-A-Y-(WAY early in the morning)

-L-Y-O-K-O-

The wall of the sphere that contained Lyoko was pressed only five meters in against the wall of the Karbon Kopy made by Xack. (Odd had decided he wanted to be more specific as to the difference between full copies of Lyoko, and copies of single sectors, so came up with 'carbon copy,' adding his own 'logo' to it by purposefully spelling it wrong.) Slowly, on both sides, two large machines were virtualized. (A/A: use your imagination. -. - - .- XD I'm bein' LAAAAAAAAAAAZY.) The machines had a two-bladed propeller on the front of each one. There were also twenty laser generators, five in a row on each blade. The machines were facing each other through the wall. Then, the machines began to glow very brightly. The blades spun rapidly, and without needing to warm up. Soon, the lasers flickered to life, carving through the flattened wall. Then water full of stray data began to pour in. It began flooding the Digital Sea that was already in the domes.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- --K-A-D-I-C-:- -J-E-R-E-M-I-E-'-S- -D-O-R-M-

"Huh?" the blond genius said, startled.

"The connection of the walls won't seal the Digital Sea out. If we don't start the welder program now, the whole of both Lyoko and the Karbon Kopy will be flooded. Then it's a straight shot to one of the more pressurized sections of the Digital Sea: the Sphere Collapsing Depth," Xack responded grimly.

Jeremie didn't take long to figure this out: if the spheres sink too low into the Digital Sea, just like structures on Earth, the pressure at that depth would crush them. The two worked fast. The tunnel was built and the two computers were already networked together through a special wireless network Xack had scripted to work through the Sector 5 Towers. Of course, in order to do this, the Tower in the Karbon Kopy Sector 5 was re-built.

Now for the welder. The two had worked all of last night on the program, and it had damn well better work! Xack launched the Sector 5.2 Transport Orb, while Jeremie launched the Sector 5.1 Transport Orb. (A/N: They can't BOTH keep the same name on everything! XD What, were you expecting a Sector 10 or something?) The two were like the north and south ends of two very strong magnets: they were drawn together. The two collided in the grid-view tunnel, causing certain pieces to smoothly weld together, and the flow to stop. It also created eight little differently-colored dots on the maps, one per sector, and seemed to build a cylinder that snuggly rested halfway in each of the spheres. Then four dots appeared along the rounded wall at each end, the four dots matching the ones from the sectors in the sphere that end rested in. A final set of dots appeared in Sector 5.1 and in Sector 5.2. Both were dark blue, and seemed to be linked to each other.

The four outer sectors of the digital worlds had the dots lining up perfectly with the Way Towers. Sector 5.1 and Sector 5.2 had these dots located at the tops, where a new tunnel had formed. These tunnels directly linked through the network.

"Uh, Xack…" started Jeremie, "what ARE those things?"

"Merely a linking system. Later today, we'll test them. Psyc and I will even be the first ones to take the trips into and out of. But like anything that exists, it is not and never will be perfect. As a matter of fact, I don't even expect it to be," the ex-AI stated. The ex-Manta looked a little worried about being one of the first to possibly be destroyed. Then he continued with a list of current errors and bugs:

" The current bugs occurring in the Lyoko Warrior Digital Clone tests are: head-on, fusing collision when one crosses one transporting area from one end, and one other crosses from the other end; falling, without the vehicles, and transporting again; transporting too quickly after just having done so, causing the Digital Clone to fall right through the second Way Tower's link and transporting randomly into the Digital Sea possibly five hundred meters or more below the spheres; multiple vehicles transporting at once cloning themselves with the same exact digital names, causing mass error and simulated transportation crashing, resulting in simulated tunnel destruction and welding reversal, then creating Digital Sea Overflow (which I don't think I need to explain to you after it having had a chance of happening already); then there's the chance that Psyc MAY turn back into a Manta for a short period of time."

"So what do you have in mind?" Jeremie asked, knowing Xack was still XANA at heart, therefore still ready to plan ahead at a moment's notice.

"I thought you'd never ask. Well, there is an occupancy limit on the tunnels. One digital being and/or one vehicle maximum. The data on the Way Tower's wall will cover the tunnel while it's in use, redirecting all Sector-to-Sector transit to and from a near-by Tower. Sector 5 and the Way Towers will redirect to, and in the Way Towers' cases, from, these "Redirection" Towers. The Redirection status is shown by a red glow around the Tower, and the Way Tower will glow yellow when the tunnel is in use. Also, the in function of the tunnel's Way Tower transport is turned off when the occupancy limit is met. And finally, the Manta program has been isolated from the tunnels," listed the other genius of Kadic.

"Ingenious," replied Jeremie.

"Neat," added Psyc.

"I know."

-C-A-F-E-T-E-R-I-A-(Breakfast)

"… and so Xack has created a new way of instantly disassembling the virtual particles in your digital forms and reconstructing them in a different location." Jeremie was a little too complicated in describing the new transport system. Only Aelita, Xack, because he created it, Psyc, because he was there at the time and knew some big words himself, and Jeremie, himself, ACTUALLY understood what he was saying.

Of course, Odd had to point it out. "Uh, could someone who understands Quantum Psychics and all that other technical mumbo-jumbo help those of us who don't out here?"

"Quantum _Physics_, Odd. And that has nothing to do with it," responded Jeremie.

"And what he's saying means I have created a transportation system that… effectively… should get us from one Lyoko to the Karbon Kopy and back, enough said," Xack continued, translating it so even Kiwi could understand.

"Uh… should?" Odd asked, eyes going wide.

Kiwi; one, Odd; zero. "Yes, Odd, should. Provided it doesn't result in either Psyc or myself exploding, it will become the transportation system between Lyoko 1.1 and Lyoko 1.2."

"Why 1.1 and 1.2? Why not A and B?" questioned the still-wary Aelita.

Xack grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "You'll see."

-L-Y-O-K-O- -1-.-1-:- -M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N- -W-AY- -T-O-W-E-R-,- -I-N-S-I-D-E-

Xack stood on the edge, demonstrating how to use the system. "Instead of directing yourself to a specific sector, just… go nowhere. Don't let a single thought of any sector cross your mind."

Ulrich still had questions. "When Odd and I did that accidentally on our first trip, we went to another sector at random."

"Yes, but this system wasn't in place. Now, we'll need vehicles of a sort…"

Odd motioned to the Overboard, Ulrich to the Overbike, and Yumi to the Overwing. The three vehicles were sitting in the center of the tower. Aelita activated her flight ability, and William had Super Smoke, which worked effectively enough.

And that left Xack and Psyc. "Hm… Psyc? Care to test the Manta-form program?"

"Sure," Psyc said, indifferently, turning into a Manta, shocking everyone, besides himself and . And what's more, he kept his human thought level.

Jeremie spoke up from the real world. "So in this form, Psyc counts as a vehicle?"

"Yes. Yes, I do," the Manta said. This FURTHER shocked everyone, except, again, the two who already knew about this program.

"See you on the other side," Xack said, jumping onto Psyc's back. Psyc flew downward, and once the two were in, all the data in the Tower flooded down, but instead of falling into the abyss, the data created a solid floor there, which Odd had volunteered to test. He stepped on it carefully, then entirely, and actually stayed. He got off moments later as the data rushed back up.

"Well, Einstein, how'd it go?" the perky cat-boy asked.

"They're fine. Who's up next?"

"Me." Everyone looked at Aelita in shock, before she plunged, the data inside shielding the tunnel once more.

-T-U-N-N-E-L-

Aelita saw nothing different, and wasn't trying to go anywhere. Suddenly, she felt a jolt upwards. _That's never happened before…_ she thought. She didn't see the tunnel anymore, but a fly-by of Lyoko. She was amazed at the work… until she saw the Digital Sea! She was going to try to pull away, but whatever guided her pulled her towards it. It was all over.

She dived in… not making a splash. She thought she saw herself fizzling out, but realized… she was ok. How did she-?

She felt the invisible walls around her, noticing the shape of the inside was like what she expected the inside of the bundles of wires to be like. You can see through one side… but the other is solid!

Aelita felt a smile creep onto her face. _XANA- no, Xack_, she thought, _you really aren't evil anymore._

-T-R-A-N-S-P-O-R-T- -C-Y-L-I-N-D-E-R-

Aelita was tossed out of the swirling tunnel below her that had an image in it of the Mountain Sector Way Tower. Said Tower switched from yellow to white.

She suddenly had stopped in the middle, flying as usual. The tunnel she was ejected from lost its image, and seemed empty.

Psyc, still in Manta form, shouted, "Aelita, watch out!"

Odd came zipping out on the Overboard shortly after, crying out "YAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOLY CRAP!!"

Aelita barely dodged as Odd was barely stopped in the middle by the force that caught her. Unfortunately, the Overboard was NOT as lucky, and flew off in a spiral, aimed at an angle, crashing into the ceiling.

Soon, everyone had gotten there, Ulrich having barely caught Odd on the Overbike as he was released by the safety program's anti-falling function timing out. Odd sat directly behind Ulrich, both a little red in the cheeks. Everyone found it funny, except for them, of course, and what was worse, for Ulrich, that is, is that Odd preferred to be there than with Yumi or Xack, and Aelita and William could only take one person. Xack also said that the Overbike and Overboard, for some reason or another, allowed for transport of a second person, where as Psyc in Manta form and the Overwing couldn't.

Odd decided to vote they be the first two to go into Sector 5.2, as said by Xack. In this case, Xack had to hack the tunnel, and did note that all of them could travel together this time. He was a bit excited to show them the new Sector 5.

"This thing will take us right to the arena. There is no count down…" he began, but he left the rest to them to figure out.

"A Skid?" suggested Odd and Ulrich.

Aelita and Jeremie, however, had a different idea. "A Key?"

Yumi remembered something from earlier, and asked about her own idea. "An archive of all the data of Lyoko?"

"Hm… All of those things, maybe even more than that?" William asked, almost positive he was right.

"Why, yes, William, that's exactly what it has." Xack smirked, encouraging Ulrich and Odd to go first, and Ulrich started mentally listing the things his room mate had been doing in his life that had seemed to be less favorable to Ulrich than himself. He did, however, go upwards into the tunnel, and head on forward.

-T-U-N-N-E-L-

They saw the flyby, except this one went the opposite direction, and to the big sphere the two had learned went to Sector 5. Odd knew just how to do this. "Ulrich?" he asked, making sure to say it so his friend would turn to face him.

Ulrich was too predictable. He did, in fact look to Odd. Said cat-boy wrapped his purple-pawed arms around the other's waist, and kissed him before breaking from it shortly after, looking sweet, cute and innocent.

-K-A-R-B-O-N- -K-O-P-Y-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5-

Ulrich was shocked, but soon realized that he was going to collide with the blue sphere in front of him in ten seconds. He couldn't believe it! Until the path swerved away and to the back of the orb, completely on the opposite side of the platform in the Celestial Dome he recognized so well. Oh, fucking great, his inner devil said, _he JUST KISSED YOU, you haven't gotten to screw him yet, and now you're gonna crash and burn!_

_Shut up_, he thought back, as the wall opened.

_Okay, so maybe there's still hope,_ the little imp replied, evilly, cheerfully and mockingly, all at once.

He hated that thing.

Soon, everyone had arrived in the Arena. Vehicles were not allowed unless in critical emergencies, so they were unloaded as soon as people had arrived inside the Arena.

Xack took lead. "The Key here works differently. You'll see what I mean soon enough."

The inside was just a maze. Except unoccupied squares randomly changed.

The maze was confusing. Forward, forwa- STOP! A wall went up, and they were stuck in a box briefly, and then everyone divided into teams of one or two to get to the exit. Xack and Psyc went looking for the Key. It wasn't long before the two found it. Xack stood on a square that rose up. Everyone saw him and the Key.

They saw him insert his sword, and twist it around, press it in, twist it, press it in and twist again…

But this time, it started to morph into the shape of the core. He yanked the sword out, returning the key to pushed-out position, and the Eye of XANA. Then it turned green.

The block he stood on was moving slowly upward still, wanting to crush him on the ceiling. He fell to his back to avoid it, and couldn't reach the Key. But Odd could. "Laser Arrow!" the boy shouted, firing one at the key, aiming as carefully as possible.

It hit, and the block rushed down. The maze closed around everyone, and then every other column and every other row opened entirely. The warriors could see the way out, or more accurately, ways out.

"Nice save, Odd!" Xack said, thankfully. "I was losing twenty life points a second from that thing. It's not the safest version of this room, I admit."

Everyone nodded, and Jeremie got on speaker. "The Celestial Dome is-"

"Oh, no, Jeremie, we aren't going to the Dome," Xack said. "We're going somewhere not on the map."

"Huh?!"

"You'll see."

The group headed down the hallway, and suddenly the two past-residents took a turn right into a wall.

"… What just happened?" Aelita asked.

Jeremie responded with an excited, "See for yourself!"

Suddenly, the wall started to wobble, like Jell-o, or maybe even swirling like water.

Odd bolted through, leaving no trace of having entered. "Guys, it's not even there!"

Everyone else walked in, and the whole group saw the fake wall vanish. Xack grinned. "I won't need that for a while."

-A-R-C-H-I-V-A-L- -R-O-O-M-

"Welcome to the archives!" Xack said, dramatically holding his arms up.

"Woah" and "wow" were the most common things he heard.

"Yes, it's amazing, isn't it?" he asked. Even Psyc was staring in awe.

"Is this where you'll…" Aelita began, joyful and excited.

"Yes. Everyone, I have tasks for all of you. Aelita, please look in the CODES area for CODE: Earth, which I didn't keep last time, and CODE: Aelita. Odd, Ulrich, if it's not a problem, find and shred the QUARANTINE files labeled "BUGGED CODE". All of them. We can't risk something even worse happening. Yumi, please find the FRAGMENT records for Franz Hopper. And William, look through the DNA files for the DNA strand labeled FRANZ. Psyc, sit. Stay. Guard. Unless, of course, you'd rather come with me." Xack said, pointing to each person as he gave them instructions. After each person or group was instructed, they went off to carry out the tasks. Odd, as reckless as ever, accidentally got hit in the paw by the shredding wall the first time he shredded an object, apparently losing a life point.

"Odd, be careful," commanded Ulrich. Odd decided from then on, just toss them in.

Yumi was having some difficulty. She found the fragments, but wasn't sure what to do then. FQ-FS was pretty far up… But soon, the floor tile she stood on conveniently went up far enough that she could collect the fragments requested.

William on the other hand, had much more difficulty. He found the shelf, reached the section he needed to reach… but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Jeremie was helping him. "No, that's Aelita's DNA… and that's… no, wait! You got it!"

Aelita, however, used panels such as this one almost daily, and knew how to identify them instantly. "You only need the codes, not the programs?"

"If I did, I'd have asked for them," Xack replied, cheerfully going about his work. He wasn't doing anything involving Franz Hopper, or his bug. His project was his top concern. It was almost complete.

A few more things here… a slight adjustment there…

"Oh, Odd, I have something that needs a name!" Xack called out.

Odd jumped and bolted for the platform that would take him to Xack's Monster Creation Level.

What Odd saw was amazing: a little creature with a drill-nose, laser-firing claws, a face like a Tarantula, a body like a Hornet, but with no wings, segments or stinger, colored a caramel brown, and four wide, stubby limbs connecting to it, also caramel brown. It could wobble around on its back legs, or dart around for brief moments on all fours.

The drill it used to burrow around. Its cry was like a mole squealing. The Eye of XANA was on its back, and only appeared when it started to drill.

"Oh! I know! Mowels!" the purple-clad warrior said excitedly. The original Mowel did a victory dance, also saying "Oof!" as it fell.

The three went down together, to show the new creature to everyone, mainly so they wouldn't attack it if it came to help.

Aelita was the one who was most interested in it. She, personally, thought the little guy was just plain adorable. Yumi was mildly attracted, while everyone else saw it as a monster equivalent of Odd, who just proudly stood there and declared "I named it!" while grinning madly.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C- -S-C-H-O-O-L- -Y-A-R-D-(Later that evening)

Aelita and Xack walked together to the dorms.

"I now have all the data and the resources needed to restore your father, Aelita," Xack said, happily.

"Yes, but… Will he still be…?" Aelita began.

"Affected by those continual time reversions?" She nodded. "No."

"I see."

"Hey, Princess, cheer up! Your dad's on his way home!" Odd burst in, having been waiting for them to come inside.

Aelita smiled as she headed to her dorm.

-E-N-D- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-T-R-I-E-V-A-L-

Kaosu: It's a bit shorter, I know, but oh, well. XD Live with it. P:

...

Kaosu: EDIT: added 1 word. XD

Also: I lost my thumbdrive, with chapter 4 on it. Unfortunately, I can't continue until I find it. XP


	4. CODE: Franz

Kaosu: Ok, I'm BAAAAACK! :D

Ulrich: Please tell me you didn't write anything we'd regret NOT injuring you for? For once?!

Odd: PLEASE?!

Kaosu: No. But you won't do anything about it! 8D –holds up a bazooka to Odd's back-

Aki: -does same for Ulrich- These things are LOADED! 8D

Odd: O_O Haven't you ever heard of respecting the will of the characters?!

Aki and Kaosu: Hell, no! XD

Disclaimer: Does it LOOK like I own it? X3 I didn't think so. XD

Last minute note: Kaosu: KICK ASS! I FOUND MAH FLASH DRIVE! MY STORIES LIVE! :3

-C-O-D-E-:- -R-E-B-O-O-T- -E-P-I-S-O-D-E- -4-

-C-O-D-E-:- -F-R-A-N-Z-

-L-Y-O-K-O-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5- -T-O-W-E-R-

Aelita was in the Sector 5 Tower. She was running the first half of the restoration/materialization program for her father. Suddenly, outside the Tower, Xack and Psyc slowly walked up to the structure, which was connected to the long platform currently. Xack drew his weapon, and Psyc became a Manta. The two began to attempt the destruction of the Tower. It began to shudder and quake.

Aelita ran out in a panic, and when she saw them, she clenched her fists and angrily screamed, "Traitors!" before firing energy fields at them. The two didn't even try, and the blasts were deflected. They advanced closer, and Psych charged a laser, hitting the sword, which then glowed red. Xack ran at full speed to the Tower, and finished it off in one blow, before the two vanished.

The Tower was destroyed, and burst into pieces, which simply floated and lingered in the sterile, mildly foggy air. Franz Hopper was gone. Forever.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -K-A-D-I-C-:- -A-E-L-I-T-A-'-S- -D-O-R-M-(about midnight, the next day)

Aelita flew up from her pillow, and gasped, holding back a scream. She checked her surroundings. 'It was just a dream? But... But it seemed so real...'

She then remembered what any of her friends would have told her in such a situation. "They all do," she breathed out in what could barely be described as a whisper.

-L-Y-O-K-O-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5-(After breakfast that day)

Xack and Aelita were the only two allowed to enter Lyoko, just because Aelita had insisted. It may have been a dream, but Xack STILL had yet to carry out his end of the deal.

The two were sent to Sector 5, which opened up on the top branch of the Eye. This was Aelita's pathway. She ran down to the Tower Core Chamber. She first would access the OTHER Sector 5 Tower, and tell it to deactivate the Key. Then, she'd wait for Xack to access the link, and the two would start their halves of the program. Zack would initiate the DNA restoration program and Aelita would put in the DGC. (A/N: Kaosu: For those who don't visit Code: Wiki, or just don't plain know what DGC is, it's Digital Genetic Code. You know, that thing that the Scyphozoa once took from Yumi, in Missing Link? Yeah. THAT thing.)

Then Jeremie would run Code: Earth on the combined data in the link, which would have a barricade around the Franz Hopper data so nothing extra was materialized. After all, a scanner may otherwise spit out a Tower, maybe Sector 5, perhaps the Core of Lyoko? (A/N: After all, who would want a life-sized, working replica of a Tower, Sector 5, or the Core of Lyoko? O. o o .O Oh, alright… MAYBE I would. XD)

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -F-A-C-T-O-R-Y- -S-C-A-N-N-E-R- -R-O-O-M-

Odd was hanging up a banner. And guess who helped him reach just above the elevator door so he could do so? You guessed it: Ulrich. (And if you didn't, it's your problem, not mine. XD) The banner was rigged with a special module, made by Jeremie, of course, to open the banner when Franz Hopper stepped out of the scanner, and Odd wanted to make him feel welcome when he returned, by throwing a little... two minute welcome home party-type-thing. Obviously, Jeremie REFUSED to program him a virtual banner, and confetti was out of the question in BOTH situations, so Odd had to settle with the banner.

Yumi just watched, and laughed as Ulrich somewhat supported Odd's weight, which wasn't as low as you may think. "You know, Odd, for being so scrawny, you're kind of heavy…" Ulrich said, a little strained under the weight.

Odd, of course, responded with what could be considered his catchphrase; "I'm not scrawny, I'm svelte!"

He got about halfway through 'svelte' before being interrupted. "Odd… They mean… the same thing…" Ulrich replied, sure he'd give out under Odd's weight if he didn't hurry. "Now… Hurry… Up!"

"Alright, alright…" Odd quickly finished the banner, and not a moment too soon. Just two seconds after he smiled, satisfied, and said "There! All done!", Ulrich fell, and Odd with him. Thankfully, neither was injured, but they ended up in a very… suggestive … position.

Somehow, Ulrich managed to land on top of Odd, who landed stomach down. Odd simply added to the humorous effect of the situation by letting out a groan. Needless to say, Psyc and Yumi had something to laugh about for a good ten minutes. No one saw Psyc take a picture of it, though. It was just THAT worth capturing and keeping forever and ever, and to poke fun at for all time.

-L-Y-O-K-O- -2-.-2-:- -S-E-C-T-O-R- -5- -T-O-W-E-R-

Xack began the process. On the other end, Aelita was adding the DGC. Franz Hopper would soon be reconstructed, and Aelita would finally trust him. He would soon be an official Lyoko Warrior.

It took no more than 5 minutes to reconstruct Franz. Jeremie typed in the code in the link's command box, and hit enter. Code: Earth was in progress.

Three more minutes later, Franz was no longer on the map.

-E-A-R-T-H-:- -S-C-A-N-N-E-R- -R-O-O-M-

Odd and Ulrich had gotten up, and Odd made Ulrich even more annoyed by kissing him, also captured secretly by Psych. (trust me; there IS a point to this. XD) Apparently Yumi was taking this a lot easier than any of them expected.

Suddenly, the four heard the scanners close. Franz came out of the one across from the elevator, Aelita from the scanner to his right, Xack from the one to his left. The banner opened, and read: "WELCOME BACK TO EARTH, FRANZ HOPPER!"

Aelita ran up to the man in the white coat and hugged him. "Welcome home, daddy!"

Xack just gave the man a quick, somewhat cocky smirk, similar to the one he had over the screen when he lived in Lyoko.

Odd just grinned and held up one finger as if expressing the point 'I'm happy, damn it! Got a problem with that?' ((NOTE: STUPIDLY HUMOROUS AUTHOR'S NOTE DEAD AHEAD!) A/N: Odd: -dancing around- OH YEAH! Who has issues? –big grin- ''Kaosu: Ulrich? ._. ''Ulrich: Kaosu and Aki? ''Aki: THE MAIL MAN?! :P .-. –everyone just stares- P: ''Odd: Noooo… the correct answer was me… XD)

-T-H-E- -H-E-R-M-I-T-A-G-E-

Team Lyoko had already taken it upon themselves to restore the Hermitage to what it once was, if only to make it more pleasant to live in. Thanks to Aelita's memory, the task was finished in a week before that day. However, there was one new addition: courtesy of Xack and Psyc, a poster, made with regular paper, of all the AI's Eyes. This poster was distributed to every Lyoko Warrior, or every 2, provided the 2 shared a dorm. The poster was like a checklist. As each was freed from the corrupted files, each one would be crossed off or whatever.

"So you four are the ones responsible for protecting my daughter these past few years?" Franz asked with curiosity.

"Yes. It's mostly been trial-and-error based. But we've figured things out one way or another," responded Jeremie.

"Yeah, like how Jeremie figured out how to create a mass colony of spheres that destroys anything related to it's target and anything that attacks it, and how he then figured out that it wanted to kill Aelita, and then he figured out that the only way to get rid of it was to infect the central sphere, and then he figured out-" Odd began, listing off a number of things Jeremie had 'figured out'.

"Odd, shut up," Ulrich commanded. Odd just stuck his tongue out at him and smiled. Ulrich then whispered in his ear, "… or else." Odd's eyes went wide and he looked to Ulrich, who grinned evilly, slowly nodding.

It took much restraint to keep from laughing for most observers.

Odd shrugged, and responded, "Eh, what can I say? Besides, he currently controls my stash of food. I have no choice." He made a dramatic sigh and acted out weakness.

This caused all restraint to die, a bloody murderous death. The team burst into laughter. Even Franz caught slight amusement in this.

-K-A-D-I-C-:- -O-D-D- -&- -U-L-R-I-C-H-'-S- -D-O-R-M-

Odd was sitting at the desk, reading the _Kadic Herald_, which, unsurprisingly had an article in it about the two new kids, who, after much bribing of cake and other sugary delights, caved and allowed for an interview. There was even a picture of the two standing beside each other smiling, arm around the other's shoulder. They both had their left foot angled up, and were wearing the same clothes they wore the first day, which looked two sizes too large. In this photo, they looked to be about eleven, which obviously involved extreme abuse of a photo-manipulation program.

"'With large bribes of cake, candies, and other sweet goodies, we finally managed to get an interview with the two new mystery boys.' Pft… "mystery" my ass," Odd scoffed.

Ulrich looked up from his book. "Well? Go on."

"'According to these two who are nearly glued together…'" Odd stopped dead when he turned the page.

Ulrich looked up again, and actually came over from his spot on his bed. "What' wro-…" Ulrich's eyes went wide, and then narrow quickly. "How," he demanded more than asked.

Odd was in a less calm state. "I don't know! YOU TELL ME?!" He stood up, started to move in the general direction of his bed, and fell over onto it.

Milly and Tamiya were outside the door of this very room, listening to the panic with clever grins.

They did not expect the two who they took those photos from to be standing there suddenly, looking down at them in annoyance.

"It's not polite…" started Xack.

Psyc finished, "… to steal our camera. It's even worse to expose secrets…"

"… about our friends using the camera," concluded Xack.

"We're sorry! Really!" cried Tamiya.

"Yeah, it'll never happen again, promise!" Milly squeaked.

Both boys responded in unison, "Good."

-L-Y-O-K-O-:- -A-R-C-T-I-C- -S-E-C-T-O-R-:- -W-A-T-E-R-F-A-L-L- -T-O-W-E-R-

There was something strange happening in Lyoko, while panic at secrets was in top conccern, and a glitch began to develop… one that could very well make the next mission impossible.

-E-N-D- -O-F- -C-O-D-E-:- -F-R-A-N-Z-

Kaosu: Meh, I suck, whatever. :P I've just found my flash drive, and I'm tired, and not in the best story-writing mind. But you people want this, so, you can have it! :3


End file.
